Smurfit Westrock PLC $SW Shares Sold by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Key Points

• Goldman Sachs reduced its stake in Smurfit Westrock PLC by 19.2%, currently owning approximately 2.54 million shares worth about $114.6 million.
• Despite Goldman Sachs' reduction, other investors like NBC Securities and QRG Capital Management significantly increased their holdings in Smurfit Westrock during the same period.
• Smurfit Westrock announced a quarterly dividend of $0.4308 per share with an annualized yield of 3.8% and a payout ratio of 260.61%.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lowered its holdings in shares of Smurfit Westrock PLC (NYSE:SW - Free Report) by 19.2% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,542,733 shares of the company's stock after selling 605,956 shares during the quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. owned 0.49% of Smurfit Westrock worth $114,576,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of SW. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 0.4% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 79,187,333 shares of the company's stock worth $3,564,678,000 after purchasing an additional 316,074 shares during the last quarter. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in Smurfit Westrock in the 1st quarter worth about $1,051,299,000. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in Smurfit Westrock by 4.0% in the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 10,244,072 shares of the company's stock worth $461,598,000 after buying an additional 395,015 shares during the period. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd lifted its holdings in Smurfit Westrock by 74.8% during the 1st quarter. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd now owns 10,114,213 shares of the company's stock valued at $455,746,000 after buying an additional 4,329,653 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in Smurfit Westrock by 39.3% in the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 6,100,067 shares of the company's stock valued at $274,869,000 after buying an additional 1,721,889 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 83.38% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently weighed in on SW shares. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $51.00 to $53.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 8th. Jefferies Financial Group raised Smurfit Westrock from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and lifted their target price for the company from $44.00 to $55.00 in a research report on Monday, June 16th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Smurfit Westrock from $45.00 to $46.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. UBS Group assumed coverage on Smurfit Westrock in a report on Monday. They issued a "buy" rating and a $60.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Truist Financial increased their target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $50.00 to $54.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, July 11th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $58.00.

Smurfit Westrock Stock Up 0.7%

Shares of NYSE:SW traded up $0.33 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $44.61. The stock had a trading volume of 541,708 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,727,646. The firm's 50-day simple moving average is $45.56 and its 200 day simple moving average is $44.28. The company has a current ratio of 1.45, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73. Smurfit Westrock PLC has a one year low of $37.01 and a one year high of $56.99. The company has a market capitalization of $23.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 67.58 and a beta of 1.04.

Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The company reported $0.45 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.57 by ($0.12). Smurfit Westrock had a return on equity of 5.90% and a net margin of 1.14%.The business had revenue of $7.94 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $7.88 billion. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 167.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Smurfit Westrock PLC will post 3.25 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Smurfit Westrock Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 18th. Investors of record on Friday, August 15th will be given a $0.4308 dividend. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 15th. Smurfit Westrock's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 260.61%.

Smurfit Westrock Company Profile

Smurfit Westrock Plc, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, distributes, and sells containerboard, corrugated containers, and other paper-based packaging products in Ireland and internationally. The company produces containerboard that it converts into corrugated containers or sells to third parties, as well as produces other types of paper, such as consumer packaging board, sack paper, graphic paper, solid board and graphic board, and other paper-based packaging products, such as consumer packaging, solid board packaging, paper sacks, and other packaging products, including bag-in-box.